I finished work today at noon and had to catch a bus to Gangnam for a 3:00pm dentist appointment.  After finishing that, I returned to Gunpo and met my co-workers for a staff dinner near our school.  I ate so much meat that, had it been warmer, I would’ve had beef sweats.  Apparently, there’s money in the school budget for the staff to get together for an activity about once a month.  Previous events included the Christmas Party and dinner at Churrasco.  This month’s activity was dinner.  There’s been talk of going bowling, miniature golfing, or an outing in Yeoido for future events.

There are three foreign female teachers on our staff.  Here we are:

[Kristy (Australia), Melissa (Canada), and Me (America)]

We arrived in Kangneung a little later than expected because Readon woke up late, and we were behind schedule by about two hours. One we arrived on the East coast, we made Seorak-san our main excursion for the day. Our first stop was some temple on the way to Yangyang. As you can see, I’m not good with remembering things.

[Check out the entire Flickr album HERE.]

After a short stop there, we made it to a small lighthouse on the coast. Lo and behold, what did we see along the path?!

A few years ago, a photographer snapped this photo of us at the Yangyang Salmon Festival, and it has been used ever since for advertisement for the festival.

We then took the backroads to some “famous” restaurant for lunch. By the looks of it, I’m on a dongdongju binge. By binge, I mean 2-3 cups.

Unfortunately, Ras didn’t fully understand what we were having for lunch. Cold noodle soup is actually one of the few Korean foods he dislikes. It tasted good, but I personally prefer hot soups too.

Outside the restaurant were beautiful rice fields. It’s harvest time.

I had forgotten my lens cap in the restaurant and ran back inside to retrieve it. While I was gone, Ras snapped this photo.

“Oh no! Raswan, watch out! The creepy serial killer in the back seat is about to slit your throat!!!!”

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Ras and I are leaving for a road trip tomorrow with Reardon to our former hometown of Kangneung (Gangneung).  Once we arrive on the east coast, we’ll drop by Seorak-san and and see if the leaves have started changing yet.  There won’t be time for hiking, so we’ll probably take the gondola instead.  Friday night will be spent catching up with old friends that are still in the city.  On Saturday morning, our plan is to drop by Yangyang and visit the Salmon Festival (and yes, that’s Raswan and I on a billboard).  Salmon is my favorite fish, so I’m looking forward to that.

I did some cleaning this morning because I hate coming back home to a dirty apartment after a trip.  Everything was spotless, except for all the hard drive cords.  There’s one more hard drive missing from this photo.

After work, we met up with Bart for a bosaam dinner.  There’s a nearby restaurant that’s great - delicious, chunky saam jaang, good dongdongju, tender bosaam, and nice seafood pahjaang (sorry for all the excessive use of the letter “A”).

After dinner, we were walking home and saw a crowd around a “mobile fish tank.”  There were quite a few people waiting for him to cut and prep fresh squid and octopus (to be eaten raw, of course).

It’s been a pretty easy week so far, with it being midterm week.  I don’t have regular classes, and my only obligation is teaching for 2 1/2 hours a day from Monday through Thursday.  Needless to say, I’m loving it.  This morning, Ras and I went to Yongsan to do some shopping.  He needed to buy a monitor cable, a 60 amp inline fuse, and other car audio “stuff” that’s way over my head.  As for myself, I picked up a 300GB hard drive for 115,000 won ($125 USD).  I can’t believe hard drives have gone done so much in price, from even six months ago.  A 500GB drive can be bought for 160,000 won, and that’s without bartering.  I’ve partitioned 110 GB to backup my 100GB Macbook Pro and the other 190GB will be for archiving my pictures, after I burn them on DVD, of course.

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The following pictures are from Dave’s birthday dinner in Ansan last Saturday.  I think I’ve fixed the Flickr/faded colors problem.  As you can see, Dave chose to go back to the “Taj Mahel.”  This time, we had 11 roti between the 4 of us!  We also walked around the street and they guys bought some cheap jerseys for when they play basketball.

There was also a lot of night shopping.

Nathan’s party on Friday turned out to be fun and surprising.  Honestly, with him being a single guy, I wasn’t expecting much food at the party.  I mean, my Korean name is “Mi Hung-ri,” after all.  I made sure to eat before getting there, and we brought our own alcohol.  We met up with Bart near E-Mart and pre-funked a little before heading to Nathan’s in Sanbon.  There were eight people there, including Dave and Peter, two of our co-workers.  The first thing I noticed, was the table full of FOOD!  And good food at that.  I immediately went for the salmon and cheeses, then helped myself to a fruity cocktail.

There were plenty of drinks for everyone’s tastes - juice, wine, beer, soju, bek seju, gin, vodka, kahlua, Jagermeister, etc.

If a good host provides enough food, drinks, and makes sure guests are having a good time, then Nathan’s definitely a good host.  Good times were had by all.  By the time I left, there were around 25 people there.  Nathan even gave out prizes for the best ajumma and ajoshi costume.

Unfortunately I didn’t win the best ajumma costume, but I’m sure I would have some in second!  Ras, Bart, and Dave tied for best ajoshi.  They had to share the ajoshi prize: Ras got a cassette of “trot” music, Bart got soju, and Dave won a pack of cigarettes.  There was a fourth prize, and the guys had to “rock, scissor, paper” for it.  Dave won and became the lucky winner of Korean Chinese porn!  Look at how happy he is!

See the rest of the photos from that night in my Flickr account.